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He seems relatively optimistic about getting a GPU driver going: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1333126014910701568 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/133

by internet2000 6y ago

He seems relatively optimistic about getting a GPU driver going: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1333126014910701568 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1333126014910701568 I don't think it'd take decades. Nouveau was pretty ok after like 5 years, wasn't it?

sweden 6y ago
It has been longer than that and 3D support is still a bit shaky. And this is based on known hardware.
marcan_42 6y ago
And Nouveau has to work with dozens of Nvidia cards, not just one, and full of legacy nonsense. I'm fairly optimistic it won't take 5 years. (Especially not to the point of having a composited desktop; long tail game compatibility is less of a critical thing since, well, there are next to no games for ARM Linux...)
- sweden 6y ago
  If you are just planning to hack something to show some basic and buggy 2D rendering, 5 years might be realistic.
  - marcan_42 6y ago
    "Just 2D" isn't really a thing, given modern GPU usage is all based on fully programmable 3D pipelines anyway. What I mean is the endless frustrating job of debugging closed source game corner cases (and often outright game bugs) is less critical here, since those games won't exist for ARM anyway. If it gets to the point where X11 and Wayland, desktop environments, common widget toolkits, browsers, media players, etc work smoothly and stably and perform well, then a lot of people will be very happy already. The long tail will always be there to chip at, and that will take years (not like vendor drivers are bug-free on any OS either!), but it's not a blocking factor to a usable desktop Linux experience. Lower-hanging fruit first.
  - reificator 6y ago
    This talk was posted in another comment chain: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7946-console_hacking_2016 https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7946-console_hacking_2016 This was 3 years after the hardware release, presented on substantially more locked-down (but x86 and PC-like GPU to be fair) hardware with a demonstration of Portal 2 running in real time. Presented by the person you are replying to. I'm also assuming there was no funding involved given the requirement to build an exploit just to boot anything on the PS4. As an unabashed cynic myself: Your cynicism as someone uninvolved with the project is outweighed by the informed opinion of someone who has demonstrated ability in the field of porting linux to other platforms.
    - marcan_42 6y ago
      To be fair, as the author of that: that was mostly a job of reverse engineering what was weird/broken/different about the PS4's GPU, which is otherwise a standard Radeon. It was effectively adding support for a new Radeon variant chip of an existing GPU generation. There was definitely a deep dive into the platform and I reverse engineered the proprietary Radeon firmware CPU architecture in the process (which nobody had done before), though, so I think I get some credit for that. But e.g. the userspace side "just worked" after a few trivial library patches; AMD's entire userspace blob GL/Vulkan driver worked completely unmodified once the kernel side was fixed up. This would be adding support for a completely different GPU, which is a whole different ballgame and order of magnitude of complexity. That said, as many hours as went into the PS4 Linux project, it was a hobby thing and I'm pretty sure if you add up the hours spent on the GPU side it wouldn't hit one month's worth of full-time work. I'm also offering a whole different order of magnitude of time investment here.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - codetrotter 6y ago
        If you get funding to do the Linux to Apple hardware port, have you considered streaming the whole process on e.g. Twitch? Would be very interesting to watch everything from the sideline. And as a reason to do it, aside from being inspiring and educational to others, by live-streaming your work you will certainly be able to attract even more funding over time.

sweden 6y ago

It has been longer than that and 3D support is still a bit shaky. And this is based on known hardware.

marcan_42 6y ago

And Nouveau has to work with dozens of Nvidia cards, not just one, and full of legacy nonsense. I'm fairly optimistic it won't take 5 years. (Especially not to the point of having a composited desktop; long tail game compatibility is less of a critical thing since, well, there are next to no games for ARM Linux...)

sweden 6y ago
If you are just planning to hack something to show some basic and buggy 2D rendering, 5 years might be realistic.
- marcan_42 6y ago
  "Just 2D" isn't really a thing, given modern GPU usage is all based on fully programmable 3D pipelines anyway. What I mean is the endless frustrating job of debugging closed source game corner cases (and often outright game bugs) is less critical here, since those games won't exist for ARM anyway. If it gets to the point where X11 and Wayland, desktop environments, common widget toolkits, browsers, media players, etc work smoothly and stably and perform well, then a lot of people will be very happy already. The long tail will always be there to chip at, and that will take years (not like vendor drivers are bug-free on any OS either!), but it's not a blocking factor to a usable desktop Linux experience. Lower-hanging fruit first.
- reificator 6y ago
  This talk was posted in another comment chain: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7946-console_hacking_2016 https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7946-console_hacking_2016 This was 3 years after the hardware release, presented on substantially more locked-down (but x86 and PC-like GPU to be fair) hardware with a demonstration of Portal 2 running in real time. Presented by the person you are replying to. I'm also assuming there was no funding involved given the requirement to build an exploit just to boot anything on the PS4. As an unabashed cynic myself: Your cynicism as someone uninvolved with the project is outweighed by the informed opinion of someone who has demonstrated ability in the field of porting linux to other platforms.
  - marcan_42 6y ago
    To be fair, as the author of that: that was mostly a job of reverse engineering what was weird/broken/different about the PS4's GPU, which is otherwise a standard Radeon. It was effectively adding support for a new Radeon variant chip of an existing GPU generation. There was definitely a deep dive into the platform and I reverse engineered the proprietary Radeon firmware CPU architecture in the process (which nobody had done before), though, so I think I get some credit for that. But e.g. the userspace side "just worked" after a few trivial library patches; AMD's entire userspace blob GL/Vulkan driver worked completely unmodified once the kernel side was fixed up. This would be adding support for a completely different GPU, which is a whole different ballgame and order of magnitude of complexity. That said, as many hours as went into the PS4 Linux project, it was a hobby thing and I'm pretty sure if you add up the hours spent on the GPU side it wouldn't hit one month's worth of full-time work. I'm also offering a whole different order of magnitude of time investment here.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - codetrotter 6y ago
      If you get funding to do the Linux to Apple hardware port, have you considered streaming the whole process on e.g. Twitch? Would be very interesting to watch everything from the sideline. And as a reason to do it, aside from being inspiring and educational to others, by live-streaming your work you will certainly be able to attract even more funding over time.